How to Make your Computer Faster

Computers
are an essential part of life, and nowadays there is not much humanity can do
without them. Almost all the activities you do either need a laptop or a
Smartphone.

When the computer begins to have a hitch of
either speed or a malfunction, most of your activities are stalled.

If your computer is slowing down its functions
and the speeds have become significantly slow, do not worry because there is a
solution to fix this problem.

Most people
do not have prior information on ways to speed up their computer, and once they
face a problem of speed, they blame the computer regarding age or processing
power and end up disposing of the computer.

It is true
that those causes could genuinely slow down the computer, but before you get
rid of your old computer, it is important to try other means to speed it up
because the problem of age might not be the immediate reason for the slow
speeds.

A new
computer may also face this problem, and it is vital that it is fixed before it
becomes a menace.

Therefore,
any computer whether new or old has the probability to slow on speed. Before we
delve on the ways to fix the problem of speed, it is essential you learn the
reasons behind your slowing computer to learn, how to fix the problem without
the help of a technician.

Reasons
why your Computer is Slow

You may have many unnecessary startup
programs

Newly
downloaded programs mostly try to make their way to the startup menu (in
Windows) or Login items (in Mac).

Therefore,
if you do not disallow them from doing so, they will continuously run multiple unnecessary
programs in the background that could be slowing down your computer.

The problem
may be because you may have many startup programs and all of them are running
at the same time which tie up the computer.

Your hard drive is failing

Majority of
the people do not know this, but it is a real problem with computers. There are
also some technicians who take advantage of your ignorance, and when you take
your laptop to them, they tell you a lot of misleading information to rip you
off.

A hard drive
has a lifespan, and once the lifespan nears, there is no way to reverse the
effect.

When your
hard drive wears down the speed of your computer starts to slow, and at times
you will have a problem booting your computer.

Your
computer hard drive could be wearing down if you are noticing a slow booting
speed, and your hard drive does not have a lot of available space.

Your hard drive is almost full

The hard
drive space is the most common reasons for a slow computer. In most cases, when
you find that your computer is slowing down, check the disk space and see if it
is above 90% full.

As many
people store most of their files like photos, videos, software and other data
in the computer, it gets full very fast compromising the space needed for the
computer to process information. Some computers can slow down their performance
up to 50% when they are full.

Many add-ons on your Browser

Browser
extensions enhance your experience when using a computer.

However,
when you add many extensions to your computer, the effort to ease your browser
experience can become a problem in disguise.

Just like
startup programs slow the computer when they run together; opening many
existing programs also slows down your computer.

The moment
you open several applications, the processing power starts getting weaker
because these programs have to share the processing power and the disk space to
run their functions. This may be one of most common reason for slow computer
speeds.

Rogue Programs may hog your processing power

It is not
only heavy-duty videos and music apps that eat up your processing power, but
there are also programs that have a loop and continuously encounter an error.

Opening many browsers at the same time

The process
of opening many different browsers at the same time say, chrome, Mozilla and
torch or even opening many tabs of the same browser at the same time could be a
problem. The browsers end up eating up the processing power of the computer.

An overzealous antivirus programs

An antivirus
is probably one of the most critical software in your computer as it ensures
computer hygiene and it acts as the computer’s protector.

However,
there are anti-viruses that run regular unnecessary scans every time
jeopardizing the processing power of the computer.

Having a virus

If you are
not operating on an antivirus, your computer is at its most significant risk.
There are many viruses on the web, and with no antivirus, it goes without
saying that your computer will be affected.

For Windows
8 and 10: Move to Windows key +X/ Task manager/ Startup tab, then right-click,
and it will pop-up a box on the programs you want to remove, and you will
select disable.

For any
other older version of windows, you will move to system configuration, then
check all the programs you dim unnecessary so that the system deletes them
during boot.

Replacing your failing hard drive

To run a
hard drive check on Windows, you have to go to start up menu, move to windows
explorer/ computer/right click on the drive, and it will pop a box/properties/
tools then check now.

Alternatively,
you can run a scan to attempt recovery of bad sectors of the computer, which
prevents your computer from accessing any broken areas of your hard drive.

In Mac: Go
to applications/utilities/disk utilities, then highlight the hard drive and
click first aid option at the top of your screen.

If your hard
disk is worn out, there is no otherwise other than to replace it. Before you
replace the hard drive, make sure to back-up all the files on your computer.

Ways of
protecting your hard drive and increasing its lifespan are to avoid throwing,
dropping or causing an impact on the computer as this could affect the hard
drive.

You might
also upgrade to an SSD which is more expensive but has away longer lifespan by
over six years.

If your hard disk is full

This task is
not difficult. The only hard part is to decide what information to discard. In
this instance, you need to distinguish between the files that you want to keep
and the ones that are not necessarily required, and make sure you only retain
the ones that are vital.

If all your
information is important to you, you might need an external hard drive. If you
want the convenience of keeping all your records at one place, then you need to
upgrade to a more massive storage hard drive to avoid the inconvenience of
moving around with a hard drive everywhere you go.

Removing extensions you do not require

You will
find that in most instances, there are extensions you do not use or those that
you only use ones a while.

If it is a case where you have slow speeds
caused by numerous extensions, identify the extensions that are of no
importance to you and disable or remove them because they will slow down your
computer even when they are not under use.

Every
browser has its way of removing the extensions from Firefox, Chrome, Safari,
Internet Explorer, and Edge. To fix that problem, you need to click on the help
pages of your browser and see how to remove the extensions.

Running unnecessary programs

Some
programs that your computer is running are of no use at that specific time. You
will notice that when you have many applications opened at once, the computer
starts hanging and at times the program stops to respond.

To avoid
such a problem, it is crucial that you close each program that you are not
using at a particular time before you start another program. Make your computer
work less so that it can serve you more.

Opening only one browser

You will
notice that almost all browsers work in the same manner meaning what you do
with one browser can be done on the other.

You need to
designate a preferred browser that you will use for most of your browsing needs
so that when you want to browse, you only open one browser.

Some sites
work well with some browsers and if it comes to such a case where you have to
open more than one browser, make sure it is indispensable and unavoidable.

Get rid of Rogue programs

If you have
a rogue program in your computer, check how much processing power they are
taking up.

If they are not using much power, you can
select quit the process, and they will not be in any use.

Alternatively,
you could remove them because they would cause problems tied to hogging the
operating system later.

Antivirus program

Antiviruses
such as Kaspersky, BitDefender, Norton, and others that do not run unnecessary
scans are recommended.

Look for an
antivirus that only runs a scan when instructed to or when it detects malware.
This idea is also coined to the problem of having a virus slowing your
computer. Installing an antivirus program is essential.

Clean your dusty room and computer

If there is
dust affecting the ventilation system of your computer, you can use a blower to
get rid of the dirt.

Also, clean
the room where the computer is under use to prevent future problems with the
dust.

Restart your computer

Many people always
have the norm of leaving the computer especially the laptop running all the
time. Your computer also needs a rest, and it is important that you always
switch the computer off when it is not under use.

Final Thoughts

All the
reasons and solutions highlighted in this article are important in fixing the
speed of your computer.

For each of
the solution you take, it is recommended that you checked the source of the
problem to avoid going back and forth trying different solutions because it may
waste your time and money.

A slow
computer is annoying, and even though you do not necessarily need fast speeds
for your computer, it is rather you fix the problem before you start getting
stressed up by the sluggishness.

If you follow the directions provided along
others you may find along the way, you will find it quite convenient to use a
fast computer. Have fun.

As the world continues to evolve to achieve full digitization in all spheres of life, the demand...

About the author

Lamin

Geek Life Activated is my little corner on the web. I'm very passionate about tech, and i aim to use this blog to express that. I currently work as a System Administrator, and i love every second of it. I'm still new at it, so i'm learning something new everyday. I'm pretty open to learning new things, so please feel free to correct me if i'm wrong about anything, and you can contact me anytime you want. I'm a very easy person to talk to. :)